


The Odds of Dying

by orphan_account



Series: The Odds of Falling [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark Magic, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Vampire Sherlock, magical john, sorcerer John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:19:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock have finally settled into their semblance of normal; solving cases, sharing a flat. Domestic bliss, some would say.</p><p>It's only natural that some serial killer has to come along and ruin it all.</p><p>It takes a lot to kill immortal beings, let alone a pair of them, but this case is like nothing they've ever seen before, the endgame far more vast than anything either of them could have imagined. </p><p>Someone is targeting every sorcerer in London, and Sherlock and John have drawn cross hares over their own backs.<br/> </p><p>If you haven't read the first one, you probably should, although it isn't entirely necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the sequel to The Odds of Falling. I'm so sorry there's been such a gap, I had other works to finish.

It was winter time, and London was dreary. In the streets, people wandered with glove clad hands and frosted breath, coats thick and noses red. Snow clung to their woolen hats and hair. Most were freezing, to say the least. 

John Watson was one of them.

Sherlock was not.

"What the hell is that warming spell?" John hissed to himself, running rather slowly in comparison to his partner, who was sprinting after car with at a speed that barely passed for human. "And why— _ah_ —are your l-legs so bloody _long?"_

"You didn't complain about that last night," Sherlock said, barely sounding winded. "There's a car jam three blocks from here. Are you up to it?"

"'Course," John grumbled rather breathlessly, grabbing Sherlock by the arm. " _Donec ad locum velim._ "

White tendrils swirled from their feet, wrapping around the two of them like vines. For a moment all John could see was the brightness of his magic, air suffocatingly warm. Then it dissipated, cold air rushing into his lungs as his feet felt the hard concrete of the sidewalk. 

"There!" Sherlock breathed, dragging John into an alley. Seconds later, a black cab passed whipped past them.

Sherlock ran out, John in tow, and threw the two of them in front of it before John could even contemplate being mowed to death by a cab. 

Or rather, being mowed back into a magical coma for another year or so. 

The headlights blinded him, his heart hammering in his chest, his hand clenching Sherlock's ever tighter.

Then the car was screeching to a halt, Sherlock wrenching open the passenger door as John held up a conjured police badge with shaking hands.

"Is there a problem, officers?" American accent. They had the wrong man. He glanced up at them with an alarmed expression.

"No, just ah, carry on." John said, stepping back.

"First time here?" Sherlock asked, flipping back the man's luggage tag. "Sun too hot in California?"

"Yes it—wait how did you—" 

"Welcome to London," Sherlock smiled, and John muttered a quick shielding spell as he realized what was to come next. 

Sherlock's glamour felt magnificently powerful, every word a spell of its own. Vampiric glamour had powers that surpassed even the strongest compulsion spell. _"You will not remember us. The cab ride was uneventful and expensive."_ he turned to the cab driver. _"You were able to drive this man on the longest route possible. It took almost an hour. You will not remember me, nor my partner."_ His eyes glowed silver, dimming seconds after he closed the door and the cab sped off. 

John breathed a side of relief when he had finished. "Your glamour is too powerful for your own good." 

"Why thank you," Sherlock smiled, reaching out a hand. "Ready to return home? I need to think somewhere warm."

"I thought you couldn't feel the cold?" John asked, taking the hand anyways. It was warmer than one would have expected from a vampire.

"Yes, but you can." Sherlock said, as if that explained everything perfectly. 

John smiled as he spoke, warmth in his heart despite the debilitating cold. _"Et adduxistis eum."_

To any passerby, they would have disappeared in a swirl of snow.

 

*****

 

Sherlock flopped down like a fish on the sofa the moment they materialized into the flat, back flat against the cushions, adopting the prayer-like pose he liked to think in. 

"So it wasn't the American." John said helpfully, hanging up his jacket. Sherlock's own Belfast coat hung unused by the door, it's owner needing no protection from the cold. "Ideas?"

"Five."

"Less than usual then," 

"Stating the obvious suites no one, John." Sherlock sighed. "Whoever killed those people possessed magic. They aren't human. Couldn't you taste it?"

"Um, no?" John muttered. "They were poisoned. I could feel it in their blood stream."

"What you felt was the outcome," Sherlock murmured, sitting up silently. "The catalyst was magical. It was like yours, but _darker_."

"I thought dark sorcerers were extinct?" 

They had been said to have slowly died out following the fall of the Roman Empire, which had also marked the end of a century long battle between the light and dark sorcerers. At least, that family had owned

"Endangered, yes, but not completely gone. Only a few left out there, although why they would want to commit to something as pedestrian as murders doesn't—" John watched as Sherlock gasped rather dramatically, eyes flying open. He moved in an excited blur, standing by the door in his scarf and coat before John could even ask what was going on.

"Sherlock, what are we—" John floundered in his seat, jacket having been flung at his face. "What, _really_ Sherlock, what the hell is going on,"

"John, what are the outward symptoms of a sorcerer when in aether sleep?" 

John stood up and shrugged on his coat. "Well we..." he thought back to when he had spent that year in the sea, sleeping off death. "We're like corpses, except no decomposition. Why do you..." he thought back to the line of bodies sitting there in St. Bart's mortuary, the five victims. "You... You think those bodies are—"

"Well there's no way to know for sure unless we test them for magic. And I believe I'll need my sorcerer for that." he smiled with the dark humor a case always brought on, excitement shining in a flash of silvery eyes. "Coming?"

"Yes," John grumbled, standing up. "Are we taking a cab?"

"You tell me." 

"Right then," he took a deep breath and raised his arms. _"Ignemel autema peregrinus,"_

A bolt of fire shot out from his extended hands, engulfing his flatmate in one large swirl of blue, before dissipating into nothing. There was only a moment where John could catch a glimpse of Sherlock's rare, surprised expression. Fire travel wasn't very popular amongst vampire kind, apparently. 

He followed quickly, casting himself into the St. Bart's mortuary, where Sherlock was already standing, inspecting the bodies. His cheeks were flushed pink. 

"Looking human," John snickered, making his way over. Sherlock huffed, coat tails sweeping away as he moved purposefully away from John.

"I'm a vampire, we get _burned_ to death," he grumbled, as if John had just offended his entire race. 

"My kind of fire doesn't hurt you," John scoffed.

"I dislike warmth."

"You didn't complain about it last night," John shot back, smiling when Sherlock didn't answer. "So, any ideas on how we're to do this?" 

He walked around the latest corpse, a young women in her twenties, attending college. Found in a telephone box in central London, poisoned. An asphyxiation agent, most likely arsenic.

"You're the sorcerer." Sherlock grumbled, gravitating back to John's side. 

"You're the genius." John answered, watching Sherlock turn the faintest shade of peach. 

He remembered the first time he'd witnessed this vampiric phenomenon; over cups of forgotten tea in a street corner coffee shop, hiding from the police they'd once again managed to piss off. John had something small, a compliment about Sherlock's ridiculously curly hair, and Sherlock had acquired an almost normal looking complexion. 

Sherlock huffed quietly over the blushing, trying to angle his coat collar to hide his cheeks. 

"Is there any way you recognize other sorcerers in every day life, anything you see in them?"

"Only by the normal ways," John answered, looking up at Sherlock. He allowed his eyes to glow bright blue for a moment. "Through the eyes. Otherwise, we look basically human."

"And you only look like that when you're casting, or threatened." Sherlock said, starting to pace around the room excitedly, weaving theories. "Like when we found each other again," he continued, not seeing as John winced. He had never fully gotten over the fact that he had bloody stabbed Sherlock in the back.

"Sorry about that," he said in reflex.

"Oh that was ages ago, John." Sherlock waved a gloved hand dismissively. He stopped, eyes latching onto a random patient. "These corpses. Five dead, over a span of five weeks. And yet," he strode over to the first victim, a twenty four year old man who had worked as a journalist. "Signs of decomposition are insignificant, it not non-existant. This corpse is the oldest."

"He looks like he's still within twenty four hours." John realized, coming closer. "How did we miss this?"

"I've been too busy chasing the wrong leads." Sherlock muttered, sliding out his magnifying glass. "What are the odds that their eyes would respond to a threat while in Aether sleep?"

"The Aether sleep is supposed to keep us safe until we've healed." John straightened, his hands stretching. "You want me to attack one of them?"

"That would seem like the obvious course of action." Sherlock remarked dryly, moving to John's side and tugging him away from the bodies. He then returned to the corpse's side. "I think a influence spell would be enough. Wouldn't want to damage the bodies."

"Can't have that," John muttered, combing through his mind's library of spells. "I'll do a simple enslavement spell. They should feel threatened enough." He took a deep breath, mouthing the words before hand. 

" _Vos en maes postesta._ " 

A silvery vapor materialized, languidly streaming towards the first victim. It flowed into his ears, his open mouth, and for a moment, John was afraid that he'd just enslaved a corpse. 

The next thing he knew, he was flat out on his back, staring up at a charred ceiling while his head pounded in time with his heart and his ears rang from the explosion. Stars danced in front of his eyes when he righted himself, shakily standing before collapsing against a wall. He whipped his head around, squeezing his eyes shut as his head started pounding. 

"Sherlock? Sherlock!" he called out, spotting a mop of curls peeking out from under a fallen shelf of instruments. Blood was steadily pooling out from under his limp form.

John staggered to his feet and managed to sway himself into Sherlock's general vicinity out of pure willpower. He dropped next to the shelf, muttering under his breath. Dim, flickering magic poured out from his palms, and within moments the metal shelf had dissolved into the air. A cacophony of metal instruments clattering onto the floor made him wince, although it did nothing to stop the steady, quick pounding of his heart as he looked at Sherlock's face, eyes closed and hair damp with blood.

He knew next to nothing about vampire anatomy, only that they were immortal just as he was, only, they could be killed. 

"Sherlock?" John murmured, brushing back the curls that had fallen over his eyes. He picked up the nearest scalpel and sliced open his arm, lowering it to Sherlock's mouth. "Sherlock, come on. Wake up."

The scent of fresh blood predictably roused him. Sherlock's lips parted for a moment, tasting it, before squeezing his eyes shut even tighter and jerking away. He opened his eyes, and they were of his human hue.

"Don't... Don't do that." Sherlock breathed, turning onto his back. He was bleeding from a head wound and a small but deep cut where a scalpel had fallen on him. 

"Don't do what?" asked John as he laid a palm over Sherlock's bleeding forehead, healing the cuts with a thought. 

Sherlock pushed himself off the floor with only slight difficulty. Even battered and bleeding he still moved with that ethereal grace vampires all seemed to possess. "The thing..." he waved his hand around as if it would finish the sentence. "with the blood you did there. Don't... ah," he groaned, pressing a hand to his chest. "I think you are severely overestimating my self control."

"Well you could either smell the blood or spend the next century comatose." John grumbled in exaggeration, unbuttoning the top of Sherlock's shirt. He breathed in sharply. There was a raw burn on the area right below Sherlock's left collarbone, a complicated star branded onto his pale skin.

"Firebrand?" Sherlock hazarded, looking down with considerable interest.

"A fire bolt." John supplied, fingers skimming the edges of the burn. "The white kind, not the red ones I use to stun criminals. If you'd been human you would be dead."

"Fascinating," Sherlock mused, moving past John, eyes fixed on the origin of the explosion. It had been the victim, remnants of magic still glowing blue on their limp finger fingertips. "So they are sorcerers."

"Yeah," said John, feeling dread like a weight in his chest. "Whoever did this is hunting my kind."

Sherlock straightened abruptly from his inspection of the dormant sorcerers. "Your kind..." he murmured quietly. He turned back and in a flash was standing right in front of John, eyes scanning him up and down with something close to worry in his gaze. "How many sorcerers did you say were in the city?"

"Around thirty or so, although they come and go every day. It's London, after all." The population of sorcerers was drastically smaller than humans, due to the fact that they only reproduced once every millennia. They also preferred to live in the seclusion of mountainous regions, although a few of the younger generation (say, the century old ones) did branch out into city life and suburban settings, living just as humans did.

"Only thirty or so, and the killer almost definitely knows we are on the case." Sherlock muttered, thinking out loud. "Balance of probability says that you are in danger." His eyes focused, and now the emotion clearly identifiable was fear. "Suppose we take an extended holiday?"

"Sherlock," John sighed. "We can't just let them continue immobilizing my kind. If this really is a dark sorcerer then this isn't the endgame. It's something big, and we have to stop it. I'll be fine."

Sherlock breathed in deeply, shoulders slumping. "Fine. I'll protect you." he declared, eyes flashing silver. "I'll have a stake in me before I let him get to you." he stated, in a way that made it sound like a fact rather than a promise. 

John swallowed, and suddenly he could feel Sherlock's fear. 

"Don't say things like that." he said forcibly, trying to banish the image of him, lying in yet another pool of his own blood, a stake buried in his heart. He shuddered, leaning in to kiss Sherlock, quick and short, just to calm his nerves. "Never. Now let's go home." 

 

That night they slept quietly, John a straight, steady presence while Sherlock was wrapped around his form, spread across the bed like his body was trying to take up all the space left. John had a hand curled firmly around Sherlock's wrist, Sherlock curling his entire form around John's notably smaller one. 

They held on tight, because in their dreams they dreamt of losing each other.


	2. Harriet Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock had never liked John's sister much at all.

That morning Sherlock woke up to the unfamiliar sensation of being room temperature. He wasn't cold, of course, vampires rarely felt such a thing, but John always produced so much heat it was enough to warm the both of them. 

The absence made undulated fear rush through him, and before he had even blinked open his eyes he had carried himself into the living room. 

John... _John..._

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, smelling the tea in the kitchen and his cadavers in the fridge and Mrs. Hudson's herbal soothers and the faintest trace of John, like a forest after a storm, earthy and charged with ozone. It was only a trace; John hadn't been here for hours. He hadn't made himself tea before he left.

Which was odd. Beyond odd; John almost never let him wake up alone. He knew that Sherlock hated it, that his warmth was sometimes the only thing that made him feel somewhat alive. It wasn't easy. He had the anatomy of a corpse that pumped blood through its veins without the use of a beating heart.

And what could be possibly have to do so early in the morning? He checked his phone; it was only eight AM.

Theories as to John's current location ranged from an emergency shopping trip to Tesco's to a surprise kidnapping by the dark sorcerer who was still on the loose around this city, but nothing substantial could occur to him, not yet. There was next to no data in the flat; John had barely touched a thing on his way out. Sherlock's frustrated groan quickly transformed into a yawn. It was too early to be unraveling mysteries. The answer was evading him somehow.

But that was his problem, of course. He always wanted things to be clever, even when the solution was right in front of his eyes. 

Literally. Stuck to his bathroom mirror, a note written in John's neat short hand, on a blue sticky that had been placed so it covered Sherlock's mouth whenever he glanced at his reflection. The words were slightly scrawled, as if he had been rushed in writing it. There was a smudge of ink where John had gotten ink on his left thumb while trying to remove the pen cap.

_Sherlock,  
I just got a call. It was my sister, Harry, she's actually in London right now, trying to find me. I've got to go pick her up. I'm sorry for leaving you cold there but this is really important. I haven't see my family in decades, didn't even know they were alive. See you soon.  
Love,   
John _

Sherlock read the note, reread it, and then walked out of the bathroom. He abandoned his attempt at taming his hair and flung himself onto the room temperature sofa, holding the note up the sunlight and reading it a third time. His mind raced, although all his files on John's family were dusty and near empty; he only knew them from when he'd been alive, and most of that time had been deleted with the exception of every moment he had spent with John. John himself rarely spoke about them; he had close to forgotten about them at this point in time. 

Every so often he might have made a passing remark about how his parents would like Sherlock now even more, or that Harry would have loved that new bar they were opening a couple streets away. These instances would always be followed by quiet; talking about his mysteriously absent family was, understandably, hard. Sherlock had never contemplated what could have happened to them, as great a mystery as it seemed; perhaps it had been out of some selfish desire to keep John to himself, to not have to share him with family or friends.

Which was why he was now lying on the couch, trying to sort out his feelings towards this turn of events; he certainly wasn't pleased that Harriet had resurfaced; the few memories he had of her consisted of brash words and too much rum. 

That being as it may, he didn't feel any overwhelming urge to hate her. If she made John happy, if she made him feel less alone, then so be it. 

John had always felt an urge to be with others of his kind; he was always overly friendly to the few sorcerers they stumbled upon during cases. Jealousy curled in his chest at the though of it, aching as he contemplated whether John would really be happier if he was with one of his own. 

He had voiced these worries only once, and they had been met with kind laughter and comforting words. To be brief, John had called him an extraordinarily thick romantic, and the rest of the night had dissolved into a pleasant haze of lips and hands and wine.

Sherlock smiled at the memory, sinking into the moment as his mind palace replayed that night with perfect detail. 

He was pulled back into the now by a noise, the sound of somehow closing the flat's front door with a bit more force than necessary. His eyes snapped open and he sat up, listening to the sound of laughter as John and another voice, female, _Harriet_ , ascended the stairs and stumbled into the flat. 

"Oh, hey, S-Sherlock," John drawled, leaning for a second on the door frame before wobbling forward and falling into his lap. He ran unstable hands through Sherlock's unkempt hair. Harriet wasn't much better, falling onto John's chair and giggling loudly.

Sherlock was definitely not pleased to see her now.

"You're drunk." Sherlock told a semi-lucid John. John nodded in response, seeming to find the entire situation hilarious, drunken giggles falling from his lips as he draped his smaller form all over Sherlock. 

Even in the current situation, Sherlock had to admit that a drunk John was rather adorable. His sister, on the other hand, was not. She was now attempting sit up, failing miserably.

Sherlock breathed in deeply to heave an award winning sigh, but stopped midway, catching the scents in the air. 

Most were to be expected; he smelled alcohol, loads. The smell wafted off of John in waves, an yet... From Harriet, it only seemed to be coming from her clothes. She flopped back into the armchair, and Sherlock could see a stain on her shirt where she had spilled multiple drinks, on herself. 

Sherlock's mind raced. The stains had been poured on from the front... No alcohol in her mouth, but on her hands... Had she been dumping the alcohol from her glass while pretending to drink? Had she been trying to get John drunk, without intoxicating herself?

But why?

Sherlock dumped his disoriented John on the couch and in moments was hovering over the drunkenâ€”or perhaps fake drunkenâ€”Harriet. He turned her over quickly, before anyone could react, and looked into her eyes.

His mind processed the new data in less than a second; her pupils, rather than being enlarged and slow moving, were sharp and quick, and her face hadn't been the confused expression of a drunk's for a moment; she had looked surprised, almost scared. Perhaps the most worrying detail, though, was the fact that her eyes were not the warm blue shade that she had shared with John. They were a startling shade of dark green, and Sherlock understood what was going on.

Several things happened at once.

First, Sherlock reared up, throwing Harriet onto the ground. 

"Who are you?" he demanded, picking her up again and slamming her into the nearest wall. Harriet's eyes flickered, becoming a menacing shade of various greens, black tendrils curling around like snakes. Sherlock's fangs descended, and he knew his eyes were shining silver. "Are you the one targeting those sorcerers?"

Fake Harriet laughed, a high pitched cackle that slowly morphed into the deep chuckle of a man. His voice came out of her mouth like he had possessed her; although Sherlock could now see the glamour for what it was. Whoever this was had simply donned a costume of Harriet Watson.

Not that John knew this. John, who had been close to passing out on a sofa. John, who was now only feet away from where Sherlock was threatening the intruder, hands held up and eyes bright blue, ready to kill. 

It took Sherlock a moment to realize what this must look like, that John probably though that he was trying to devour his long lost sister.

"Get away from her, Sherlock." John warned, and small bolts of blue lightning danced around his palms. The rush of magic had cleared away the alcohol, and Sherlock wasn't sure what was worse; getting killed by his lover or his lover's fake sister.

"John, this isn't Harriet." Sherlock told him, pressing her further into the wall. Fake Harriet smiled at him in a mad sort of way, at then abruptly turned towards John. Sherlock could see her eyes turning back into their normal shade of blue. She cried out in pain and her voice was female again.

"John, please, _help me,_ " she begged, tears welling up in her eyes. Sherlock growled at the lie, and in response she raised both arms and made a show of desperately trying to get away from the monster. "Let me go, let me go, oh god _please._ "

Sherlock's fangs pierced his own lips in his frustration, and he slammed her back fiercely. "Stop it. Stop this. _Why are you here?_ You've come to kill us, for the case, haven't you?"

Sherlock tightened his grasp, the fake Harriet screamed as if he had stabbed her, and then Sherlock was engulfed in blue lightning, thrown back until his head hit the kitchen table and he crumpled onto is side.

There was pain, so much of it, and blood, warm on his hands, a hole burned right through him. He dimly recognized the magic as John's, and it only made him sink to the floor faster, made him want of give up and die.

He wrenched open his eyes even if it made everything too bright and watched as Harriet's imposter transformed into a young, blond man in a swirl of black smoke. He raised his arms to no doubt kill a stunned John, and Sherlock summoned the last of his strength to lunge forward and sink his fangs into the dark sorcerer's calf.

Sherlock was fading fast. He was dimly aware of the dark sorcerer wrenching his leg away and John's panicked voice yelling spells, the smell of ozone heavy in the air. There was a blast from some area near his violin stand, knocking Sherlock to the ground, and his last thoughts were of the bitter tasting blood, the pain, and of John. 

_I'm so very sorry,_ he thought uselessly, and then darkness converged.

*****

There was a dull ache in his side when he awoke, though it was relatively better than what the gaping hole had felt like. Sherlock was lying on the couch in a pair of sweat pants and what he recognized as the comforting scratch of one of John's jumpers. When he opened his eyes he was met with ruffled blonde hair and red eyes, tear tracks and shaking hands.

"John," he rasped, coughing. The movement hurt, and John placed a light touch on his shoulder to keep him from sitting up. Sherlock raised his left arm to brush John's cheek, trying to soothe his enormous, sad eyes. "Are you alright?"

John let out a short, unhappy laugh, leaning forward to kiss him on the lips. It was the shortest press, and then John was leaning his forehead against Sherlock's eyes squeezed shut to keep away what he supposed were tears.

 _"Sherlock,"_ he breathed, and Sherlock could feel every breath he took, shaky bursts against his skin. "God, I just keep _hurting you._ " 

"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock chided quietly, moving his stiff arms around the shorter man and in an odd approximation of a hug. He breathed in deeply, and confirmed what he already knew. "I've hurt you as well."

John pulled away in confusion, although the sadness still lingered in his face and Sherlock hated it. 

"You haven't hurt me."

Sherlock pulled him back down again, burying his nose in the crook of John's neck. "I can smell the blood on me." he murmured, pressing an apologetic kiss against where he knew John had healed the bite. "You gave me your blood, and you shouldn't have."

"You would have died." John replied, sounding confident in his reasoning. 

"You could have died." Sherlock countered. "You're still weakened by the effort. If he had returned, balance of probability would be that you would be killed."

John sighed, pulling away to look at Sherlock's earnest expression. The frown he had would not go away. 

"He didn't come back." John stated, looking down at Sherlock's torso. He gingerly lifted the T-shirt to reveal fresh white bandages, the center most areas stained red. Sherlock looked down at it and calculated the wound to be around the span of his hand. When he looked back up John's face had morphed into something a thousand times more painful, guilt darkening his eyes into a dark, navy blue. That was the thing about sorcerers; while you could read well enough from human eyes, sorcerer's eyes laid everything bare.

John's voice was raw and horrified, as if he was relapsing into a nightmare. 

"I did this." he murmured brushing the edges of the red. "I almost killed you. I did this."

Sherlock decided he would bring an end to all this guilt nonsense. "You though I was about to eat your sister," he reminded him, descending his fangs for emphasis. "I would say that's a proper response. Although I'm hurt that you think I'd be capable of that."

The last bit had been said lightly, although it felt short, and only served to make John hang his head lower. 

"I'll heal you." he promised, laying both palms flat against the wound. Sherlock failed miserably at hiding his wince as he swatted the palms away.

"You'll throw yourself into a magical coma after all the healing you've done already." Sherlock reminded him, keeping hold on one of John's hands. "I'd be here all alone. You could wake up and find me a pile of ash."

John seemed to fold in on himself at the thought.

"Fine," he sighed, sitting back to look at Sherlock properly. "Do you need anything?"

"Could you help me up? I feel like I've been sleeping for days." Sherlock glanced out the open window. Outside, the sun shone like it was morning again. "Or have I really been sleeping for that long."

John swallowed, and his expression turned pained again, so much so that Sherlock almost regretted asking. 

"You were... Dead," he sounded like choking on the word. "For half a day after I gave you blood, and then your regenerative processes starting working a bit and I started the healing spells... God, Sherlock." he scrubbed a hand through his short cropped hair. His words dropped into broken whispers. "I thought you were gone."

"I'm sorry," Sherlock said honestly, and John scoffed unhappily at the comment. He didn't pursue his guilt though, and for that Sherlock was thankful. He didn't know how many more times he could stand John's self-flagellation before he snapped and went after the man who was really to blame.

Not that he wasn't going to do that anyways. Right after this damn hole in his side reached a considerably smaller size. Bodies were such an inconvenience; what he could do if he wasn't tethered down by flesh and bone.

Then again, bodies allowed for some good things. His mind couldn't exactly cuddle with John's without limbs; there'd be no more need to waste time drinking tea while watching crap telly, or stay up late at night all in tangles, not sure where either of them started, not caring in the slightest... 

Bodies were okay, he supposed.

"Help me up?" Sherlock asked, widening his eyes in a way he knew made most people give in to almost anything. At least, it worked on strangers. 

John rolled his eyes fondly, hooking an arm under Sherlock's legs and wrapping the other one across his torso for support. He didn't help Sherlock so much as carry him into a sitting position while Sherlock bit back a groan and dug his hands into the poor pillows, almost tearing them open.

"Sorry," John mumbled, setting him down on the sofa again and sitting gingerly in the space left.

"Stop apologizing," Sherlock grumbled, reaching over to entwine their hands. He attempted to grab the remote with his toes and failed miserably, wincing as plastic clattered with hardwood boards. John grabbed it off the floor with a quiet laugh.

"In the mood for some bad sitcoms?" John asked, turning the television on.

Sherlock nodded bracingly, wondering whether he'd be allowed to deduce things this time. Mrs. Hudson had said it disturbed the neighbors, although if they were disturbed by _that..._

"Deduce your heart out," John told him, and Sherlock had to wonder whether he had secret mind reading powers that he had failed to mentioned. It hadn't been the first time the notion had crossed his mind.

He thought about one of their many nights together, but the telltale shade of red John would turn whenever confronted with the subject didn't rise to his cheeks, and Sherlock smiled.

*****

John found a note amongst the rubble of what had once been glass beakers and a wall. Its said, _sentiment is a defect found in the losing side._

He crumpled it into his fist and threw it out the open window.

 

*****

 

A week later, after too much rest, an abominable amount of tea, and three seasons of a sitcom he'd already deleted from the archives of his mind, Sherlock was back in mint vampiric condition, swooping around the flat at deplorable speeds and making a general fuss over his restored freedom of movement. 

John was almost surprised to death by him three times in that one day, spilling his tea twice, but he didn't have the heart to tell him to slow the fuck down like he usually would; the entire mess had been his fault anyways, and the guilt hadn't dulled with Sherlock's fast recovery.

There was, of course, other matters to be attended to, namely the dark sorcerer who had taken the guise of his sister. The both of them tiptoed around the subject, John avoiding it most of all, although for the first time in his acquaintance with Sherlock the manâ€”vampireâ€”didn't seemed excited at the prospect solving this case at all.

 

They were dragged back into it three days after Sherlock fully recovered, by a poorly timed phone call and a healthy dose of embarrassment.

Sherlock's cell buzzed against the wooden surface of his dressing table, like an alarm to Sherlock's superhuman hearing.

Not that he particularly wanted to hear it at the moment, not when John was making so much more _pleasant_ noises underneath him. All the same, he knew who it was.

"Fuck," he groaned, rolling off the bed and stumbling to the table. He accepted the call and put it on speaker phone, trying to dress as fast as he could, which was quite fast. 

_"Sherlock?"_ Lestrade's voice was tinny and small over the phone. 

Sherlock was tugging a shirt over his head, chucking another to John. "Lestrade, ah-um, what do you want?" 

Lestrade heard the breathlessness in his voice. _"Sherlock, are you alright?"_

"Yeah, fine," Sherlock replied too enthusiastically, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 

"Greg, what is it?" John asked, voice as rough as Sherlock's had been.

Lestrade coughed loudly the moment he realized what was going on and John turned an even darker shade of red. Sherlock laughed, planting a kiss on his lips before turning back to the phone, where Lestrade was blubbering something about interrupting and how sorry he was for it.

"George, what's going on?"

 _"It's Greg,"_ Lestrade replied, seeming to forget about John and Sherlock's activities for a moment. _"And there's been another murder. Same toxin, same random location."_

Sherlock swallowed, and behind him John breathed out a short string of swears. 

He cleared his throat, trying not to sound strained. "I'll come in and look at it within the hour. Bart's?"

 _"Yeah,"_ Lestrade said, seeming rather keen to get off the phone. _"I'll see you there then. And ah, you too John."_

"Bye," John coughed, although his complexion wasn't quite as flushed as it had been a few moments ago.

Sherlock made sure to change that.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come, obviously.  
> Feedback? pllleaaassSSEEE? 
> 
> Have a nice day :)


End file.
